Truth in Advertising


I just love the TV ads these days for any prescription medicine. The disclaimers at the end regarding side effects sometimes go longer than the rest of the ad.

My favorite is for the sleep aid, Lunesta. One of the side effects mentioned is "drowsiness". Shit, I hope so.

Posted October 27, 2005

Racist Coach Speak


There's much hullabaloo locally about the comments made by Fisher DeBerry, the Air Force Academy's football coach. After a recent shellacking by TCU, 48-10, the coach was quoted this week saying "Afro-American kids can run very well. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it's very obvious to me that they run extremely well."

First off, an Afro is a hair style. Second, if you hear him talk, a very folksy manner with a southern accent, and consider his age, 67, you understand exactly his background and what he means. What he really wanted to say was: "We gotta get us some of them ni**ers, so's we can be fast too".

You'd think by now, any coach, commentator, whatever, would never, ever broach the subject of race and athleticism and expect to keep his job.

Posted October 27, 2005

Styling an FAQ


Almost every site has some kind of FAQ page and it seems everyone does it a little differently. I've done about a half-dozen variations over the years and had designed one a few years ago using a table with a graphic for the Q and A letters. I liked the look, but wanted to get away from the tables.

After a few experimentations, I've come up with one I like using CSS for all styling and clean HTML code. It retains the large colorful Q and A letters, plus a background color for the questions. See a sample page using this method.

faq.gif

The CSS code for this:

.question {
font-weight: bold;
background-color: #ded;
padding: 0 0 .1em 0;
margin-bottom: 0;
margin-left: 1.5em;
}
.answer {
margin-top: 0;
margin-left: 1.5em;
}
.question span {
background-color: #fff;
padding: .2em .5em .2em .2em;
font-size: 150%;
color: #f00;
margin-left: -1.5em;
}
.answer span {
font-weight: bold;
padding: 0 .5em 0 .2em;
font-size: 150%;
color: #008000;
margin-left: -1.5em;
}

And the HTML:

<p class="question"><span>Q</span>How?</p>
<p class="answer"><span>A</span>This</p>
Posted October 18, 2005

Favorite Band


Finally got a chance to see my current favorite band, Porcupine Tree, in concert. They had played down at the Fox Theater in Boulder back in May, but I didn't find out about it until after the show, so when I saw they were returning, I could not miss it. Thank goodness I didn't. I was blown away. They were awesome. Hard driving guitar riffs. Soft melodic vocals. I wore my calves out jumping up and down. Truly a band to see every chance I get.

Posted October 18, 2005